WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange hints at more leaks on way

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has hinted that new leaks are coming, although he gave no specifics on what these might be.

He was speaking over Skype in a streaming-video interview beamed to an audience at the South By Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas.

He has been confined to the Eucadorean embassy in London since June 2012, and used the session to discuss government surveillance, journalism and the situation in Ukraine.

Assange accused US President Barack Obama's administration of not taking Edward Snowden's revelations about the National Security Agency's surveillance activities seriously.

"We know what happens when the government is serious," he said.

"Someone is fired, someone is forced to resign, someone is prosecuted, an investigation (is launched), a budget is cut. None of that has happened in the last eight months since the Edward Snowden revelations."

Assange added: "Now that the internet has merged with human society and human society has merged with the internet, the laws of the internet become the laws of society."

He added that the NSA's "penetration of the internet" has led to a "military occupation" of civilian space.

Assange has taken asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault charge, which he has said would be merely a first step in efforts to move him to the US to face charges over publishing hundreds of thousands of secret government documents.

The five-day conference will also host Edward Snowden in a similar remote interview from Russia which granted him temporary asylum.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has reported extensively about Snowden and the NSA's surveillance efforts, is also due to appear at the festival.